


Through with Wanting

by paradisecity



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-11-04
Updated: 2006-11-04
Packaged: 2018-01-10 09:47:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1158169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paradisecity/pseuds/paradisecity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Heightmeyer tells Rodney to take one thing for himself, it's not surprising that what he wants is time with John.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Through with Wanting

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the Emergency Cuddlefic-a-Thon.

It's not the first time it's happened, but it's the first time Rodney's done it on purpose.  
  
He goes still for a moment, deciding against it, then recklessly decides on selfishness. It's not like there isn't a better than 13.517% chance he'll die before the week is through -- he has the statistics and color-coded charts to prove it. And he's got plausible deniability anyway, so the minimal risk is one he's willing to take.  
  
Taking.  
  
 _Take one thing for yourself,_ Heightmeyer had said, in a disappointing show of triteness. He'd come to expect better from her, though he thought perhaps it wasn't so much due to her knowledge or skills but more to the way her blonde hair fell in soft ringlets down her shoulders, caressed her breasts, shone softly in the sunlight. _One thing you don't need, one thing you just want. One things that's yours._  
  
 _You can't always get what you want,_ he'd said, and she'd looked disappointed, as though quoting Jagger was any worse.  
  
She'd be proud now, he thinks, if she could stop being interested by the implications long enough. She's so transparent, but she's always let him look his fill and only smiles understandingly. Some days, that's enough.  
  
One thing that's his. Yes. He knows what he wants, and if he could get over the shame long enough to admit it, he knows he'll take it however he can get it. He doesn't think too long on whether that constitutes need. He doesn't really want to know.  
  
Instead, he collects his coffee from the table and sits gingerly on his stool, wincing when it creaks. He quietly gathers up a sheaf of printouts from Robbins, who's eschewing the use of email attachments in some petty rebellion Rodney neither understands nor cares about. She's wrong, as always, though at least it's not until the third page of calculations this time. The scratch of the pen as Rodney draws a big red arrow pointing to her attempt to rewrite the simple laws of _addition_ is defeaning in the silence, though not nearly as much as his muttered curse, and he stills.  
  
"Rodney?" John says softly in his ear.  
  
Rodney holds back a sigh. "Colonel? Sorry," and he can hear the elongated vowels Carter teased him about not long ago, everything so loud and sharp after only thirty seconds of silence and he feels patently foolish. "I didn't mean to leave the radio on."  
  
"It's all right," John says, and Rodney waits for the double click that tells him Sheppard's closed the channel.  
  
It doesn't come.

\--------

"So Han shot first," John says, affable and familiar in Rodney's ear as though there haven't been three days and twice as many casualties since they started this conversation.  
  
Rodney, walking down the hall with a teetering pile of spare parts in his arms and Radek with an even taller pile beside him, nearly stumbles. "Does it really matter?" Rodney says, exasperated. Radek raises an eyebrow and Rodney tilts his head, indicating his radio.  
  
Radek, who hadn't meant to leave his on, does not turn it off.  
  
"Of course it does. Han shot first. He's a scoundrel. It's who he is."  
  
"And what?" Rodney says, with only the vaguest inkling this might not actually be about Han Solo, "People can't change?"  
  
"Do you honestly think they can?" John counters.  
  
"I think if you're being who you really are, there's no need to do so." Out of the corner of his eye, Rodney sees Radek's assessing glance, a bit too much curiosity in it, and Rodney realizes they're on the science command channel. He snaps into his radio, "Fine, Han shot first. Happy?"  
  
"Yes," John says, but he doesn't sound like it.  
  
Rodney reaches over and clicks off Zelenka's radio.  
  
One thing that's his.

\-------

"Colonel," Rodney asks idly, examining one of the jumper crystals for a hairline crack that would explain the sensor malfunction, "are they--" but the answering silence stops Rodney short. He's gotten used to the background murmurs of John's quickening breath when he runs or the laboriously slow hunting and pecking at his keyboard when he types. He can differentiate the sound of John paging through paperwork and turning the pages of _War and Peace_. He knows what disassembling and cleaning a gun sounds like, and he knows that John hums Motown without being aware of it when he's doing inventory.  
  
What Rodney doesn't know is how long this silence has gone on, or why.  
  
He clicks off the science command channel and onto the military one. "Colonel Sheppard, what--"  
  
But John interrupts him. "Channel 11, Rodney."  
  
"Why?"  
  
John clicking off his is only answer.  
  
So Rodney does. "Why?" he asks, after he hears John click back on.  
  
"It's our team channel."  
  
"We don't have a team channel on base." They've never needed one; their access overlaps enough that one was never necessary.  
  
"We do now."  
  
Rodney had only meant to ask if they were serving those purple squash-like things in the mess for dinner, but he feels like he's gotten an answer to a much better question instead.

\------

Rodney stumbles through the door and thinks about toeing his boots off before he faceplants on the bed instead. "Ugh," he says around a mouthful of pillow, and struggles ineffectually to get his jacket off. But he gets tangled in it and he has to sit up to get untangles and figures while he's there he might as well unlace his boots as well. He makes a blurry sound of victory when they hit the ground beside the bed. His hand moves to his radio, hesitates, and then moves back to his pillow. He makes another tired sound, something he knows means _I want_ and _mine_ and _just for me._  
  
"Hey," John says softly, as though he can hear Rodney's thoughts. "You snore in my ear and I'm turning this thing off."  
  
Rodney thinks about laughing, but sighs off into sleep instead.

\------

The first thing Rodney hears is, "Good morning, sunshine," in his ear and a warm, gravelly laugh before he's even really awake. "Took you long enough this time."  
  
"Mmph," Rodney says intelligently, burrowing back into his pillow with the barest idea there's a ridiculous smile on his face he's glad John can't see.  
  
"Do not," John says, "fall asleep on me again," but Rodney intends to do just that, the soft warmth of the sheets beneath him and the sun his skin already calling him back.  
  
He drifts off, thinking reckless, sleepy thoughts about needing and taking.  
  
He's through with wanting.


End file.
